Do you have a language you're kind of ashamed that you like(d)?
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Some sort of glue language that maybe everyone loves to hate, but felt right at home for you? Are you a closet Access/VBA junkie? Do you secretly love Perl? For me it would definitely be VB6. As much as I hate to admit it, for Windows UI code that glued my DLLs together, I feel like it was fantastic, even if the language itself was clunky and kind of limited unless you were willing to hack down to win32 from it quite a bit. Still, pretty neat what you could do with it if you were willing to get dirty. I learned a lot of win32 with it.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
It's ancient and dated, but I still have a fondness for hpl, Hewlett Packard's custom language for their early desktop computers. There was a lot that it couldn't do, but there were a couple of things it could do that made it perfect for its intended application. Back in the day, when we had RAM measured in kbits, programs had to be very short. In hpl we had the command
chainthat would save the program state and start a new program where the first left off. This essentially allowed programs to be written that were far larger than the machine could accommodate, up to the limit of the disk space available. A second feature made my in-house reputation as an engineer soar; the keyboard key,storewas storable, and could be executed at runtime. Since I was developing automated missile test software and hardware meant to be used in a noisy factory environment, ambient electrical noise was a constant problem. I wrote a code block that I used in almost all applications that would measure the local noise, run an FFT on the samples, create a custom filter subroutine to remove that noise, then add the resulting filter program to the actual test program as a pre-processor on the measured data. The accuracy of testing was vastly improved. Sadly, hpl met with an untimely death, like all good things, it seems. Unlike every other popular language at the time, its instruction set was entirely lower case, which mainline programmers couldn't accept. If it wasn't written in capital letters, it couldn't possibly be any good. By the time HP introduced the HP9845 desktop computer, hpl became optional, and HPBasic replaced it as standard. Things kinda went downhill after that...Will Rogers never met me.
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Some mechanics look down their nose at impact wrenches. Just sayin'
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
... because most still don't torque wheel nuts right (the mechanic or the tool?). You need a breaker bar to loosen them.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Calin Negru wrote:
a version of Basic that was a lot like todays Assembly
:omg: That seems mighty odd, and purpose defeating for a language called Basic.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
“a lot” is maybe to much said, like for instance you had no registers but you had no functions to work with either, to establish the execution order you had to mark each line with a number. You could then jump as required from place to place with the go to command. There are a ton more features that make a programming language, I’m only describing the things I knew how to use.
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Some sort of glue language that maybe everyone loves to hate, but felt right at home for you? Are you a closet Access/VBA junkie? Do you secretly love Perl? For me it would definitely be VB6. As much as I hate to admit it, for Windows UI code that glued my DLLs together, I feel like it was fantastic, even if the language itself was clunky and kind of limited unless you were willing to hack down to win32 from it quite a bit. Still, pretty neat what you could do with it if you were willing to get dirty. I learned a lot of win32 with it.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Some sort of glue language that maybe everyone loves to hate, but felt right at home for you? Are you a closet Access/VBA junkie? Do you secretly love Perl? For me it would definitely be VB6. As much as I hate to admit it, for Windows UI code that glued my DLLs together, I feel like it was fantastic, even if the language itself was clunky and kind of limited unless you were willing to hack down to win32 from it quite a bit. Still, pretty neat what you could do with it if you were willing to get dirty. I learned a lot of win32 with it.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
VB6 and VBA, have actually created some really cool apps for automating hardware tests, real time fft displays, animated data plots, etc. My former employer still uses VBA code I wrote nearly 20 years ago in Excel as convenience apps for myself as part of new product performance validation for FDA approvals. :laugh:
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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“a lot” is maybe to much said, like for instance you had no registers but you had no functions to work with either, to establish the execution order you had to mark each line with a number. You could then jump as required from place to place with the go to command. There are a ton more features that make a programming language, I’m only describing the things I knew how to use.
My first programming class had Basic like that, I couldn't stand it X| . I blame my instructor for promoting 'spaghetti' code. If I had more than 20 lines, I was completely lost, goto this, goto that... It wasn't until I had FORTRAN 77 that the structured programming possibilities opened up for me :) . Oddly now I do a fair amount of assembler programming for embedded systems.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Some sort of glue language that maybe everyone loves to hate, but felt right at home for you? Are you a closet Access/VBA junkie? Do you secretly love Perl? For me it would definitely be VB6. As much as I hate to admit it, for Windows UI code that glued my DLLs together, I feel like it was fantastic, even if the language itself was clunky and kind of limited unless you were willing to hack down to win32 from it quite a bit. Still, pretty neat what you could do with it if you were willing to get dirty. I learned a lot of win32 with it.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
Nope, no I don't.
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Some sort of glue language that maybe everyone loves to hate, but felt right at home for you? Are you a closet Access/VBA junkie? Do you secretly love Perl? For me it would definitely be VB6. As much as I hate to admit it, for Windows UI code that glued my DLLs together, I feel like it was fantastic, even if the language itself was clunky and kind of limited unless you were willing to hack down to win32 from it quite a bit. Still, pretty neat what you could do with it if you were willing to get dirty. I learned a lot of win32 with it.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
I loved MS Visual Basic v3. It was my first exposure to GUI programming. VB was the gateway drug of coding.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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I know nothing about CF, so please rest assured I am not dissing it, nevertheless, the way you phrased it:
snorkie wrote:
Not quite ashamed, but I started in Cold Fusion 4.5
This is like the quip "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it" :laugh:
Cheers, Vikram.
i am only ashamed that i never used basic, vb or otherwise for applications PLI/I, Fortran (lots), Cobol(lots), C(lots and lots) I actually learned Algol and used it for short time. I was in the faster is better application area (computer graphics, numerical anal., simulation)
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
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Delphi 6. I used it for 2 different jobs. One job was Delphi only from 2004 to 2013. When that job played out (gov't contract not renewed) I reluctantly listed Delphi on my resume. Within the same month my old job ended I was hired as contract to hire at my current job specifically because of Delphi 6 on my resume. I have since transitioned to Java. I do love the colon equals operator for assignment, no if (a = b) instead of if (a == b) mistakes there. I started my career in a similar way, got first job because I knew dBase III+, soon move to Microsoft C 5.1. Yes, that was a long time ago.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated. I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.
Ah I remember Delphi, we built a solution that worked for about 2 hours before the memory leaks crippled it, took the code to Borland and they could not fix it, Delphi died that day along with 3 months of work.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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jschell wrote:
(the sort of comments that should not normally appear in code.)
Hey, if it doesn't bother you that it's necessary to do that with Perl, far be it from me to judge. Every time I even read Perl I feel like I need a shower. :laugh:
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
I recently wrote a script to reset and fix the display layout when I switch between laptops using a KVM switch and multiple USB hubs. I wrote one version in Perl and one in PowerShell. I like the Perl one better. I'm definitely not ashamed to say I still like and use Perl. :)
@x=qx{pnputil /enum-devices /problem};
for(@x)
{
if(/Instance ID:\s+(.+)/)
{
system qq{pnputil /disable-device \"$1\"};
system qq{pnputil /enable-device \"$1\"}
}
}pnputil /enum-devices /problem|select-string "Instance ID"|Foreach-object {$_ -match "Instance ID:\s+(?.*)";$x = $matches['root'];Invoke-Expression -Command "pnputil /disable-device ""$x""";}
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My first programming class had Basic like that, I couldn't stand it X| . I blame my instructor for promoting 'spaghetti' code. If I had more than 20 lines, I was completely lost, goto this, goto that... It wasn't until I had FORTRAN 77 that the structured programming possibilities opened up for me :) . Oddly now I do a fair amount of assembler programming for embedded systems.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
30 years later they still teach that stuff.
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Gee Wiz basic
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Some sort of glue language that maybe everyone loves to hate, but felt right at home for you? Are you a closet Access/VBA junkie? Do you secretly love Perl? For me it would definitely be VB6. As much as I hate to admit it, for Windows UI code that glued my DLLs together, I feel like it was fantastic, even if the language itself was clunky and kind of limited unless you were willing to hack down to win32 from it quite a bit. Still, pretty neat what you could do with it if you were willing to get dirty. I learned a lot of win32 with it.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
honey the codewitch wrote:
For me it would definitely be VB6
Upvoted for being courageous enough to admit this here or on any coder's forum! :thumbsup: I agree 100% with you. VB6 might be old and ugly but as long as MS is shipping the runtimes with the OS, those executables will live on and some developers will continue to support those products/projects. I came back to programming in the late 90s and got my first job doing VB6/Classic ASP development. To keep a long story short, I am still at that company and we still lots of active VB6 projects. (likely > 1M LOC across 2 largish apps and 100 or so 'add-on modules') Those apps are getting migrated as time allows which means very slowly! :laugh: In the past I've hired 2 jr. developers for migration only, but neither worked out. Perhaps I just haven't found the right one...or I'm impossible to work with. :laugh:
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
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honey the codewitch wrote:
For me it would definitely be VB6
Upvoted for being courageous enough to admit this here or on any coder's forum! :thumbsup: I agree 100% with you. VB6 might be old and ugly but as long as MS is shipping the runtimes with the OS, those executables will live on and some developers will continue to support those products/projects. I came back to programming in the late 90s and got my first job doing VB6/Classic ASP development. To keep a long story short, I am still at that company and we still lots of active VB6 projects. (likely > 1M LOC across 2 largish apps and 100 or so 'add-on modules') Those apps are getting migrated as time allows which means very slowly! :laugh: In the past I've hired 2 jr. developers for migration only, but neither worked out. Perhaps I just haven't found the right one...or I'm impossible to work with. :laugh:
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
If you're still using VB6 and you want to make your apps pretty check this site out vbAccelerator.com - Advanced VB, C# and VB.NET Source Code and Controls[^] He produces some quality controls for VB6 with professional look and feel. It's aces. I learned a lot back in the day from just looking at his code.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Some sort of glue language that maybe everyone loves to hate, but felt right at home for you? Are you a closet Access/VBA junkie? Do you secretly love Perl? For me it would definitely be VB6. As much as I hate to admit it, for Windows UI code that glued my DLLs together, I feel like it was fantastic, even if the language itself was clunky and kind of limited unless you were willing to hack down to win32 from it quite a bit. Still, pretty neat what you could do with it if you were willing to get dirty. I learned a lot of win32 with it.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
Windows Batch. It's my dirty little secret.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Delphi 6. I used it for 2 different jobs. One job was Delphi only from 2004 to 2013. When that job played out (gov't contract not renewed) I reluctantly listed Delphi on my resume. Within the same month my old job ended I was hired as contract to hire at my current job specifically because of Delphi 6 on my resume. I have since transitioned to Java. I do love the colon equals operator for assignment, no if (a = b) instead of if (a == b) mistakes there. I started my career in a similar way, got first job because I knew dBase III+, soon move to Microsoft C 5.1. Yes, that was a long time ago.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated. I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.
The first (real) language I learned was Pascal and I still respect the walrus operator. It just always seemed more imperative than plain '='.
cheers Chris Maunder
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i am only ashamed that i never used basic, vb or otherwise for applications PLI/I, Fortran (lots), Cobol(lots), C(lots and lots) I actually learned Algol and used it for short time. I was in the faster is better application area (computer graphics, numerical anal., simulation)
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
FORTRAN in itself isn't terrible. Millions of lines of FORTRAN written by scientists who never did any formal computing and just let their systems grow and metastasise...that was torture. Hopefully never again.
cheers Chris Maunder
